NELSON HOUSE

[s. 548] : A trading post in the Dominion of Canada, situated in Keewatin Terabout 450 miles N. N. W. of Winnipeg. Station of the MCC (1871), with (1903) 1 mi ionary and his wife, 2 outstations, and 93 profe ed ritory, Christians. NEMURO A town in Japan, situated on the: E. extremity of Hokkaido. ABMU (1887), with (1903) 1 Station of the woman mi ionary, 4 native workers, 5 outstations, 1 place of worship, 2 Sunday schools, and 86 profe ed Christians. NEPAL An independent kingdom lying along the southern slopes of the Him a lay as, in North India, and tho there are treaty stipulations between its government and that of British India, it is outside of the immediate circle of British influence. To the north its territory extends up the sides of the Him a lay an range until it meets that of Tibet, along an unsurveyed and indefinite frontier. Its southern boundary is usually about 30 miles from the foot of the Him a lay as. On the west a small stream separates it from the sub-Him a lay an British province of Kumaon; and its eastern limit is the small mountain state of Sikkim, north of Calcutta. Its greatest length northwest and southeast is 512 miles; its breadth varies from 70 to 150 miles. The total area has been computed at about 54,000 square miles. No census of population has ever been taken. The Nepalese estimate is about 5,500,000; the soberer, and probably more correct, opinion of Anglo-Indian officials places the population at 4,000,000. There are many aboriginal tribes in Nepal, most of whom seem to be of Tatar origin. But the regnant tribe is that of the Gurkhas, who are descended from the: Rajputs of Northwestern India, and who migrated in the 12th century from the original home of their people during the early ascendancy of one of the invading Mu ulman dynasties. Most of these aboriginal tribes are Buddhists, but Buddhism is gradually disappearing before the stronger Hinduism of the ruling race. Rice is the staple food of the people. The highest — known mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, 29,002 feet high, as well as many Him a lay an peaks inferior only to that, lie within the limits of Nepalese territory. Since the subjugation of the country by the Gurkha dynasty, several bloody revolutions, marked by the true Oriental features of a a ination and usurpation, have occurred. The last was in 1885, when the prime minister and two other prominent men were murdered by the head of a rival faction. The murderer at once made himself prime minister. Violent as the revolution was, it was considered a probable step toward much-needed reforms within the kingdom. Nepal has never been open to the entrance of Europe ans, tho the Incfian Government has usually maintained a resident there. No mi ionary stations have yet been permitted. The capital is Khatmandu. Population supposed to be about 50,000. — NEPALESE LANGUAGE An Aryan language spoken in the kingdom of Nepal, north of India, and written with the Nagari characters. The: extent to which learned. 630 it is in use has not yet been NESTOR I AN CHURCH: The name is derived from that of Nestor i us, who was patriarch of Constantinople for three years previous to his excommunication by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; but the Nestor i ans repudiate the name, and call themselves the Church of the East. Their separation from the great body of Eastern Christians was due mainly to political and national forces. Christianity spread eastward very early. The Syriac-speaking Christians of the great Me so pot am i an plains, with a smaller number of Persian and Arab Christians, were the subjects of the Part hi an, and then the Sa an i an kingdom. Syriac was the ecclesiastical language of all. The persecuting zeal of the Persian kings was increased by the feeling that their Christian subjects were secret allies of the Roman enemy. The school of Ede a, the theological center of these Christians, was closely a ociated with that of Antioch; and Theodore of Mopsuestia, the true father of Nestor i an theology, was revered. Hence, it was natural for the Persian Christians to espouse the cause of Nestor i us against Cyril, of Antioch against Alexandria, and at the same time to gain greater security by di ociating themselves from the Christians of the Roman Empire, in repudiating the creed of Ephesus, and erecting the See of Seleucia into a patriarchate. On their part, the emperors hastened the schism by persecution. In 489 the Persian school was expelled from. Ede a, in Roman territory, and established beyond the Persian border at Nisibis. The great organizer of the Nestor i an Church was. Barsumas, Bishop of Nisibis. A similar cooperation of political and theological forces led, in the next century, to the organization of the other Syrian National Church, the Jacobite. The centers of Nestor i an population were about Nisibis, Mosul, and Seleucia, and in Khuzistan, in Southern Persia, while considerable bodies were found in Khurasan, Armenia, and Arabia. The technical expre ion of the Nestor i an Christ ology is “two natures, two hypostases (Syriac qnuma), and one person (Syriac parsopo).” The terms are difficult of definition, but qnumais defined in the theological treatises as including the generic attributes, that part of the nature po e ed by each individual, while parsopa includes those that are individual. Thus, it is said that Peter, Paul, and John are separate qnumas with respect to common qualities, and separate parsopas with respect to differing qualities. It is argued that nature implies such individualization and is incomplete without it. They conceived of the Incarnation as an indwelling, the union of the divine person with an individual hu man personality and not with human nature. A corollary is the denial to the Virgin Mary of the title Theotokos, mother of God. Practically, this Christ ology served as a badge of separation, and had little effect otherwise. In other regards, the Nestor i an Church differed from other Oriental churches by way of arrested development. Its liturgy is briefer, and le some doctrines, but it contains the invocation of the saints and prayers for the dead. The cro is revered, but neither pictures nor images are used. The real presence, and the explicit in sacerdotal character of the clergy are taught, but not transubstantiation or confe ion to priests. The parish clergy marry, but mon- Nelson Honae 631 asticism was a powerful institution, and the bishops were chosen from the monies. For several centuries the episcopal succe ion, contrary to the church canons, has become dynastic, usually pa ing from uncle to nephew. The patriarchal seat was first Seleucia, then Baghdad, later Mosul, and finally Kochanes, in the heart of the Zagros Mountains. The history of this church is checkered and obscure. The bloody persecutions of Christians by the Sa an i an kings were previous to the rise majority of those Net lier lands in Persia members of the Greek Church. very are enrolled as A smaller but body, mainly in Persia, are Probably le than half of the whole number still acknowledge the authority of the influential Protestant. Nestor i an patriarch. The part of Persia in which the Nestor i ans live is closely united to Ru ia in an industrial way. The rapid development of Transcaucasia has given work to you sands of Nestor i ans, while of Nestor i an ism, but the Nestor i ans were hara ed many more have gone farther into Ru ia. Almost every adult male has at some time spent by some of the Sa an i an kings, and were outlawed by the Roman emperors. Islam at first was mild by contrast, and the Arab conquest was welcomed. The Church extended more widely than ever, and Nestor i ans, especially as physicians and secretaries, were in high favor m the Caliph’s court, while their bankers and artisans ama ed wealth. They were the translators of Greek literature, and the transmitters several years in Ru ia. This fact has given a sense of Ru ia’s power and a conviction of its future supremacy, while the absence from home has had a disintegrating religious and moral effect. The increasing misgovernment of Persia has made the people long for a change, a temper induced also by the various mi ionary operations. All these influences prepared for the Ru ian Mi ion of 1898, that received in Urmia of philosophy to the Arabs. The toleration extended was limited and in the end worse than persecution. The Christians were subject to special taxes, and held an inferior status before the law. The Caliph exercised the right of investiture of the patriarchs, and thus the highest office became the prize of bribery and was secularized. Along with this went a tacit acceptance of the prohibition of proselyting Mohammedans. The mi ionary spirit was deadened but not extinguished, and found vent an extraordinary welcome. in work for non-Mohammedans. Christianity had entered India before the rise of Islam, and bishops were still appointed to that country. During the 8th Christian century active propaganda was carried on among the pagan tribes on the borders of the Caspian, and about 630 a.d. persuasion almost all the adherents of the Nestor i an Church in the region of Urmia renounced its teachings and profe ed their acceptance of the Orthodox faith. Subsequent events disappointed the political aims of the new converts, but it is safe to count the ma of them as permanent additions to the Ru ian Church. Time must reveal the future of this ancient church, but the political predominance of Ru ia makes very probable the absorption of most of the Nestor i ans, in Turkey as well as in Persia, into the Ru ian Church. The old church has not the strength to stand. The only body that seems to have the promise of a separate destiny is the small but vigorous body of Protestant Nestor i ans. Nestor i an monks entered China. Christian cemeteries, medieval travelers, and Syriac historians testify to the existence for several centuries (about 800-1300) of large bodies of Turkish and Mongol Christians in Central Asia, and in Northwest China, especially along the northern bend of the Yellow River. When the Mongol hordes overran Western Asia, not a few Christians were numbered in their ranks and some were high in office. It seemed as if the opportunity for Christian triumph had come, but in reality its downfall was near. The large Christian population had been decimated by the anarchy, famine, pestilence, and war that had cursed Western Asia; and finally the Nestor i an Church was well nigh exterminated in the terrible Mongol forays ending with the ma acres of Tamer lane. Since a.d. 1400 its history is only that of a few shattered dioceses of the mighty line that once spanned Asia. At present the number of Nestor i ans, including those who have seceded to other Christian churches, is little more than one hundred you sand. They live in three distinct regions, the plains of ancient As syria, the rugged valleys of the Zagros Mountains in Turkey, west of Lake Urmia, and the plains in Persia, between the mountains and the lake. The large majority are engaged in agricultural or pastoral pursuits. Those in the mountains, like the Kurds among whom they live, have maintained a precarious independence, but the Sultan is steadily subjecting them to taxation, without, however, maintaining peace and security in those wild regions. Those in the plains of the Tigris, and a few elsewhere, are Roman Catholic. The Without any religious Badger (G. P.), Nestor i ans and Their Ritual, London, 1852; Mi ionary Review of the World (Nestor i ans and the Ru ian Church), Vol. XII., p. 745. 549